Authors: S.K. Valenzuela
Sahara swallowed hard. She was finally alone,
and that’s all she wanted.
Wasn’t it?
From his balcony across the courtyard, Jared
watched the light fade from Sahara’s room. He was sharpening his
boot-knife, the rhythmic sanding motion bringing him thoughtful
calm.
“Jared?” someone called from inside his
chamber. “Jared, are you here?”
Jared turned and brushed his way through the
curtains. His quarters were similar to Sahara’s in size and shape,
but not as sparse. A sword rack hung above the mantle on the north
wall, stocked with an impressive selection of blades both
traditional and exotic. Between the bed platform sprawled against
the south wall and the fireplace stood a long table with two
chairs, littered with parchments and a stack of leather-bound
books.
A young man stood in the doorway, his arms
crossed over his chest. When he saw Jared step through the
curtains, he entered the room and closed the door with a soft
click.
“I was hoping you’d come back.”
“What do you want, Kirin?” asked Jared,
slipping the knife into its holder with a sigh.
“I just wanted to ask you something, that’s
all.”
Jared measured him for a moment and then went
to a small, polished stone table holding a crystal decanter and
several stubby glasses. Jared lifted the decanter and proffered it
to Kirin.
“Care for a drink?”
Kirin shook his head.
Jared shrugged and poured himself a glass.
“Sit, please,” he said, jerking his head toward the long table.
“Just push that stuff out of your way.”
Kirin obeyed. “Maps, maps, and more maps. How
many maps of this desolate and God-forsaken place does a man need,
Jared? I mean, really.” He picked one up, glanced at it, and then
tossed it aside.
“As many as it takes to find what I’m looking
for,” Jared answered, taking the other seat and setting his glass
on the table.
“And what are you looking for, exactly?”
Jared measured him again. “That’s not why you
came here, is it?”
“Well, no, not—”
“Then why don’t you just get to the point?”
Jared swirled his drink and took a slow sip.
Kirin thumbed the edge of one of Jared’s
books, then cleared his throat. “I was wondering about the
girl.”
Jared’s eyes flickered up to rest on Kirin’s
face. “What girl?”
“The girl you carried here out of the desert.
The one you visited before dinner. You know.” Kirin leaned forward,
as if this were some great secret between the two of them. “The
outworlder.”
“She’s not a girl, Kirin.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Jared. We’re going to
play semantics now?” Kirin slouched back in his chair and crossed
his arms.
“It’s not semantics, Kirin. There’s truth,
and then there’s not truth. Speak truth, or you can take yourself
and your questions out of here.”
“Whatever,” Kirin muttered. Jared arched his
eyebrow, and Kirin hurriedly added, “So will we see her tomorrow?
Is she well enough to join us in the hall?”
“She’s well enough, but whether she’ll join
us is still an open question.” Jared took another drink, feeling
the heat of the alcohol begin to settle in his stomach. “It would
please you, would it? If she came?”
Kirin looked up quickly, his tawny curls
falling across his eyes. “Why do you ask like that? We all want to
see her.”
“You don’t get out much, do you?”
“What the hell is your problem, Jared?” Kirin
snapped. “You act like you’re so much better than the rest of us
all the time! So superior. Is it because you’re the only one who
goes trekking in the western desert? The only one who dares hunt
the hunters? Is that what makes you think you’ve got the right to
treat the rest of us like infants?”
Jared shrugged and polished off his drink.
“What’s your point?”
“What’s yours? You’re the one who’s skewering
me for having a little natural curiosity.”
“My point is that she’s out of your reach,
Kirin. So just be careful.”
“And why’s that, Jared? You have a claim on
her already?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
Jared surveyed his empty glass, then met
Kirin’s gaze. “She isn’t like the women of this place. She’s
not…she’s not tame, Kirin.”
Kirin grinned suddenly. “I know. That’s the
point.”
Jared rocked his chair back on two legs. “You
know something? You’re an idiot. And here’s a bit of friendly
advice. If you think you want to play that game with her, I suggest
you start by trekking out to the western desert to hunt some
Dragon-Lord scouts yourself. Get some guts, Kirin. Or she’ll tear
you to pieces before you even know you’ve been hit.”
“I think you’re just afraid she’ll like me,”
Kirin said, still grinning.
Jared let his chair down with a bang.
“Believe me,” he said, “that was the last thing that would’ve
occurred to me.”
Kirin laughed and stood up to leave.
“Whatever you say, Jared Desert-Stalker. Whatever you say.”
The door closed behind him, and Jared heard
his laughter echoing all the way down the hall.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you!” Jared muttered
after him, and then a wicked smile swept across his bronzed
face.
He woke the next morning just as the sun was
peeking over the horizon. He lay still for a moment, watching the
light spread through the curtains and across the floor. It was like
watching a flower blossom in accelerated time, and Jared felt a
deep and quiet joy flood through him. A breeze ruffled the curtains
gently, as if to rouse him from rest, and he got up and
stretched.
He poured water in the washbasin against the
far wall and splashed it over his face and neck, shaking the
droplets out his dark hair and wetting his bare chest. When he had
finished he wiped his hands dry on his wide-legged black pants and
stepped out onto his balcony, drawing a deep breath of the fresh
morning air.
The rising sun splashed the eastern sky with
a wash of red and orange, and the eastern wing of the Great House
cast a sharp shadow over the courtyard. Jared’s room, in the center
of the third floor of the west wing, was just high enough to escape
the deepest shadow, and the ambient light around him grew steadily
brighter.
He stretched again, closing his eyes and
putting his hands behind the back of his head. Then he leaned his
forearms against the stone balustrade of the balcony and gazed down
into the courtyard. It was utterly empty, but the fountain’s
gurgling voice seemed to be welcoming the dawn with the same joy
that pulsed through Jared’s veins. His eyes flickered over the
windows of the east wing, lingering on the third-floor balcony
second from the southern end of the building, where garnet colored
curtains fluttered in the early morning breeze.
He smiled to himself and was about to go back
inside when some movement on that balcony arrested his attention.
The garnet curtains were suddenly jerked aside, and then Sahara
stepped out onto the balcony. She was rubbing her arms, not
brusquely, but slowly, as if comforting herself. As she paced up
and down the length of the balcony, her hands on her arms kept time
with her feet—a slow, meditative pace. Then she stopped, put her
hands on the balustrade, and inhaled deeply, her eyes closed, her
face tilted up toward the morning sky.
She did not look in his direction when she
opened her eyes, but down into the courtyard. She leaned on her
arms, as Jared had done, but her right hand went to her hair, her
fingers lifting the strands and testing their length.
What’s she doing?
Jared wondered,
unable to take his gaze from her.
Her hand worked methodically from the back to
the front, and when she had measured the hair that lay across her
forehead, she suddenly bowed her head until it rested on her
forearms.
Jared felt like his heart had lodged itself
somewhere in his throat. Sahara’s shoulders heaved, and he felt in
his gut, though he couldn’t hear them, the sobs that were wrenching
themselves out of her. At last, her shoulders stilled, and she
lifted her head, wiping her cheeks with the palms of her hands.
Then she was gone, and the curtains, disturbed by her swift
movement, billowed in and then out again.
Jared lingered on the balcony a moment
longer.
Could my invitation to breakfast be so distressing to
her?
he wondered.
And if not that, then what?
He went inside and dressed rapidly. He would
go and ask her, and he would go right now. Snatching his sword off
the table, he pulled the door shut behind him and started off down
the corridor.
He reached her door sooner than he had
expected, and he hesitated for a moment. A wave of doubt suddenly
washed over him, but he dropped his fist against the smooth wood of
the door anyway.
No answer. Another wave of doubt threatened
to extinguish his resolve utterly. He put a hand on the doorknob
and turned it, surprised to find it unlocked. Gently he pushed the
door open a crack.
“Sahara? It’s me…it’s Jared.”
“Isn’t it too early for breakfast?” Even
through the heavy door, he could hear the strain of tears in her
voice.
Jared peered around the door and then,
meeting no objection, came inside and shut the door behind him.
“Yes, but I thought I’d come by and see how you were feeling this
morning.”
She watched him mutely from where she sat on
her bed, her bare arms hugging her legs against her chest.
“So…how are you?” he asked.
A shuddering sigh rippled through her body,
but she said nothing.
He sat down on the end of her bed. “I’m glad
to see the bandages are off,” he said, nodding at her ankle.
“I guess so,” she said.
He raised his eyes to her face. Tears
trembled in her green eyes, and her cropped red hair ill-concealed
the long, dark scab that ran almost the whole width of her
forehead. Jared took a deep breath.
“Sahara, listen. Perhaps I shouldn’t have
said anything about breakfast this morning.” He paused, and then
added, “If you’d rather eat here, I’ll be happy to bring something
up to you.”
Sahara’s eyes widened momentarily, but she
shook her head. “No. I’ve been thinking about it, and…and I think
you’re right. I should come with you.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’ll come. But…”
“But what?”
“But I don’t…I don’t know what to wear.”
Her eyes locked with his, and he smiled
gently at the raw helplessness in their depths.
“That’s easily fixed,” he said. “I know that
Lady Aliya had this room prepared for you, so I’m sure there are
other clothes in here for you to wear.”
“Where?”
He knelt down next to the bed and opened a
drawer in the base of the platform. Inside were shirts, cropped
pants, and skirts, all in black and white. He pulled open the
adjacent drawer and she saw dresses like the one Aliya had worn the
night before, but these were in hues of delicate green and dark
brown.
“So it seems you have more than enough to
choose from,” he observed, grinning up at her. “What would you
like?”
Sahara leaned over and ran her fingers over
the dresses. “I’ve never worn anything like these,” she murmured.
“So soft….”
“The ladies of the house usually dress for
dinner,” Jared told her. “I suspect that’s what these are for.
Breakfast and the noon meal are much less formal. You know, more
come-as-you-are affairs.”
Sahara drew her hand back and sighed. “I’m
not sure I want to come as I am,” she murmured, her fingers
un-consciously tracing the long scab on her forehead.
Jared frowned. “I think you look lovely,” he
said briskly. He pulled a white shirt and a pair of black pants out
of the drawer and tossed them on the bed next to her. “Here,” he
said. “These should be fine.”
He got to his feet and went to the other side
of the room, where the wash basin sat on a table. As he filled the
basin from the pitcher and set a towel next to it, Sahara slipped
off the bed and joined him.
“There,” he said. “You can wash your face, if
you wish.” He brushed his fingers across her cheek. “You don’t want
to look like you’ve been crying, do you?”
Sahara started like a wild horse under his
touch. “So what if I have been crying?” she snapped. “Who
cares?”
Jared felt for a moment as though she’d
actually slapped him. “I just meant….”
“I can manage from here, thanks.” She bent
hastily over the washbasin, splashing water up into her face.
“I’ll just wait for you outside, then,” he
said, hiding his surprised confusion by turning on his heel and
leaving the room.
*****
Sahara kept splashing in the basin until she
heard the door close behind Jared, and then she lifted her face and
pressed it into the towel. It was refreshing, she had to admit, and
she did feel better about the world now that her face was clean and
dry.
She shed the clothes she had been wearing and
slipped into the clean ones. The shirt was of the same fabric as
her other one, but this one had cap sleeves and a tie that
crisscrossed around her waist and tied behind her back. The cropped
pants had delicate silver embroidery along the side seams.
There was a rapping on the door, and Sahara
opened it herself this time.
“What do you want?” she asked, leaning her
head out the door.
“I forgot to give you something.” He waited
and she stared at him expectantly. Finally, he asked, “Can’t I come
back inside?”
She pulled the door open and stood aside for
him to enter, and then shut the door behind him. Without a glance
in his direction, she went out onto the balcony again. Jared
followed her.
“You look nice, by the way,” he said, leaning
on the balustrade next to her.
“Right.”